Mladic family calls for death declaration

The family of Europe’s most wanted fugitive Ratko Mladic today asked a Serbian court to declare him officially dead.

Mladic’s family lawyer Milos Saljic submitted a formal motion to the Principal Court in Belgrade.

Mr Saljic says the family has not heard from the former Bosnian Serb army commander for years. He says Mladic was seriously ill and could not have survived without medical care.

The move also appears designed to undermine efforts by Serbia’s pro-Western authorities to locate Mladic, who has been on the run since 1995 and whose arrest is crucial for Serbia’s bid to become a member of the European Union.

Mladic is wanted by a UN court over the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Bosnia in 1995 and other war crimes.

Mr Saljic said: “Mladic was last seen in February 2003. After that, despite a determined search by international and local security services, there is no evidence that he’s alive.”

Saljic said Mladic, who is 68 if he is still alive, could not have survived without medical care, and added that a death certificate would “relieve pressure” on Mladic’s family, whom he claims are being harassed by the security services.

However, the authorities say the move appears designed to undermine efforts by Serbia’s pro-Western government to locate Mladic, who has been on the run since he was indicted for genocide in 1995 by a UN war crimes court.

Bruno Vekaric, Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor, has dismissed the family’s initiative as “speculation”, and added that the search for Mladic is continuing unabated.

Mladic is wanted by the UN court over the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica in 1995 and a three-year armed siege of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, that left tens of thousands dead.

Mr Saljic dismissed the possibility that Mladic is living under a false identity like former Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic, who was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 disguised as a New Age guru, brandishing long white hair and a beard.

“It is not in his personality to act,” Mr Saljic said. “Such a man is not able to live a different life from the one he has always lived.”

The authorities believe Mladic is hiding somewhere in Serbia’s capital Belgrade, under the protection of a few of his hardline wartime comrades, never leaving his apartment.